HP's Rambus test system can expand to 32 sites

PALO ALTO, Calif. -- Hewlett-Packard Co. today announced an extension of the 16-site HP 95000 HSM Series high-speed memory test system that expands the Rambus DRAM production test solution to 32 sites. The 32-site system is designed to improve the cost-effectiveness of testing RDRAMs and other high-performance memory devices.

The 32-site system offers a direct migration path from the 16-site systems and uses the same water-cooled test-head electronics. It is software and loadboard compatible with existing 16-site HP 95000 HSM Series test systems.

"Our high-speed memory test roadmap is designed to provide HP customers with an evolutionary path to higher production throughput and significantly lower cost of test," said Gayn Erickson, program manager for the HP 95000 HSM Series. "The loadboard assembly on the x16 system is designed to go to 32-sites, thus simplifying the transition to the 32-site test head. The 32-site system uses the exact same electronics as the 16-site system, so our customers can simply add electronics -- preserving their investment and reducing the need to evaluate an entirely new system.

More than half of the RDRAM currently shipped is tested on HP 95000 test systems," according to G. Dan Hutcheson, president of VLSI Research Inc., a market researcher in San Jose. "Other test-system suppliers will need to change both their test-system mainframe and test-head electronics to achieve 32 sites in a single test head."

"With our growing memory test-system volume, we can now offer new pricing for our volume customers to lower their cost of test by 20% to 30%," said John Scruggs, vice president and general manager of HP's Automated Test Group. "We have reached this point in our cost-of-test roadmap much sooner than expected, and it positions us to lower the cost of test for other high-speed memory technologies as well."

HP is taking orders now for the new 32-site HP 95000 HSM Series, with volume production deliveries expected in the first calendar quarter of 2000. Prices for high-volume customers are expected to be the range of $100,000 to $150,000 per test site.